7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Castro as the personification of Soviet Intrusion into Cuba, November 5, 2009
This review is from: Cuba 1952-1959: The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power (Paperback)
Castro as the personification of Soviet Intrusion into Cuba
Marquez-Sterling, Manuel 2009 Cuba 1952-1959: The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power. Kleiopatria Digital Press ISBN-10: 0615318568 ISBN-13: 978-0615318561
This book is a magnificent effort, and a very important one. While I might quibble with the author on some details such about who seemed to be the most senior Soviet agent in charge of Cuban subversion, or the importance of the Battle of Guisa (only mentioned in passing in Time Line section (page 229, 30th of November 1958, Rebels dominate Oriente) where IED (improvised explosive devices) were employed extremely effectively by the Castro forces. However, such quibbles do not detract from this work.
What is abundantly made clear that there was an immense and long standing effort on the part of the Soviets to find, train and deploy Cuban nationals, including Castro, to further their cause. Apparently the Soviets spared no effort to this end; they even burned up their other agents and agents of influence. In this regard perhaps the most telling of all material (and there is a great deal of important information here) is on page 145 when they expend perhaps their most valuable agent of influence Herbert Matthews, merely to carry a message from Castro to author's father.
The book also makes a point of Castro's carefully guided duplicity, at a time when too many books on Castro harp misguidedly on Castro's "mistreatment" by U.S. Officials, he had already put into action his continuing plans (now apparently under the overt direction of Hugo Chavez, but in reality merely a continuation of Soviet plans by former KGB agent and now leader of a reduced Russia). One only has to read the material on page 183 to see that Castro even when he while visiting the U.S. was already deeply involved in subversion of Latin America. Other sources concur, for instance in Meredith Daneman's book "Margot Fonteyn: A Life" it is clear that Castro was supporting a failed invasion of Panama (see also my 2007 Amazon customer review of this volume "The dancer as a spy?'...One of the mysteries of Margot Fonteyn is her association and almost certain minor activities as an agent.'"
The author pointeds out that the Soviet subversion of Cuba started with the arrival and actions of Fabio Grobart, (a disciple of "Iron" Feliks Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet repression apparatus not in text). It is my personal opinion that Grobart was instrumental in destroying the strength of the conservative Independence fighters and unbalancing for ever the political scene in Cuba. An especially pertinent activity was directing the infiltration and ultimate cooption of the powerfully armed Gibara expedition against Dictator Machado in a 1931 way that brings to mind the misdirection of the "Bay of Pigs" invasion.
Fidel Castro's contacts apparently started via G.W. Bashirov (pages xxiv-xxv), and continued support of the clandestine Soviet apparatus. This included somehow using the communist sleeper cells (especially in the Sierra Maestra, where they had been placed long before by Grobart) at the future communist dictator's command (not mentioned directly in text).
Thus in the view of the author (with which I agree) Castro's triumph and long rule were part and parcel of substantial and long term operations by Soviet Intelligence. It is ironic that once in power, Castro's mismanagement forced the Soviets to spend tremendous amounts of money, and that in turn promoted the collapse of that "Evil Empire." However today, one observes a resurgence of that ruthless command, helped in great part by the aid of Western Hemisphere subversive organizations that Castro engendered all over the Americas from his base in Cuba.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cuban Revolution: The Missing Perspective, November 21, 2009
This review is from: Cuba 1952-1959: The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power (Paperback)
I read this book while taking a short seminar on Cuba, and it was very useful. It was good to be exposed to this "other" history of the Cuban Revolution, and understand that it wasn't just a Batista vs. Castro story. Very important to me, the book did a real service of reminding the reader that beneath major events are always some set of actors, among whom interacting predilections, decisions and actions combine to yield the observable events. The observable events always seem to take on the character of a simple, easily remembered story, which obscures what actually happened. So it was very interesting to read the accounts of the involvement of the different characters. And the book was very nicely produced, too; good layout, look & feel.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cuba 1952-159, April 4, 2010
This review is from: Cuba 1952-1959: The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power (Paperback)
My brief assessment of History professor Manuel Marquez-Sterling's book (Cuba 1952-1959: The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power) is that his work has unequaled comprehensive details of politics, diplomacy, and media coverage of Cuba during the 1950's, just before Castro's rise to absolute power in 1959. Among the significant events is Batista's Coup overthrowing fifty years of Cuban democracy in 1952, efforts by the opposition to Batista- by both the violent revolutionaries and the peaceful constitutionalists, the media's erroneous and very favorable portrayal of Castro as a heroic pro-democracy figure (particularly New York Times Herbert Mathews and CBS reporter Robert Taber), the U.S. State Department backing of Castro and the subsequent arms embargo against the Batista dictatorship, events leading to the November 58 elections that Batista fraudulently stole from the author's father, and Castro's takeover in January of 1959 after Batista's chaotic departure. My only negative critique is that the author is a bit too soft on Batista and a bit too harsh on the moderate and liberal revolutionary political leaders that supported the armed struggle against Batista. However, the book is the author's labor of love, for both Cuba and a father that got cheated from been President in November of 1958. As a matter of fact, this book by Marquez-Sterling is recommended in my own book about Memories from the Land of the Intolerant Tyrant (available from Blue Note Books) as one of the best describing political events in Cuba before the 1959 Revolution.
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